Full Moon Rising by Keri Arthur
Well, hello, boys and girls, there’s a new vamp in town. One that is part werewolf. Actually, a tad more werewolf than vampire. Oh, I’m rambling. You haven’t met her yet, have you? Ok, think Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You know what I mean: young, pretty, kick-ass action female. Right, got that. Now imagine Buffy isn’t the slayer but a vampire herself and living in a world were vamps and wolfs and other non-human creatures are … well, not accepted really but merely discriminated against, as opposed to hunted as monsters. And just one step further that vamp lady is genetically more of a werewolf than a vampire.
That combination gives you Riley Jenson of Melbourne, Australia. Not really the kind of place where you’d expect vampires habitually dwell, what with all the sun and that. Then again Riley is a genetic phenomenon in being the daughter of a wolf-lady and a vampire bloke. Obviously vampires don’t normally create offspring the traditional human way. But it is just possible that a freshly risen new vampire within the first 24 hours of the turning could still father/conceive a child. Lucky for that particular vampire werewolves in this world are the most sexually driven creatures imaginable and the lady was more than willing. E voila, Riley and her twin brother Rhoan are the result.
Riley and Rhoan live together and both work for the Directorate of Other Races, looking after all non-humans making sure they obey law and order. Rhoan goes missing in action right at the start of the story. So Riley sets out to find her brother and stumbles across a cloning experiment on non-human races. To make matters worse the cloning is very closely related to Riley’s two regular lovers’ respective businesses. Yes, you read that correctly: I said two and I said regular, meaning to imply more and casual.
You see werewolves are greatly misunderstood creatures. They’re not blood-thirsty, murdering monsters at all; they merely become like that when they don’t get enough sex. Surely that’s understandable. I mean we’ve all been there; you get a bit cranky when there aren’t enough endorphins in the system. So what the full moon thing is really about is having the week off work to get laid. With special werewolf clubs to cater for casual encounters, as getting a motel room quickly really is a bitch. Sounds like the way forward to me.
All in all this is a fun book to read. It doesn’t demand amazing brain capacity and the storyline doesn’t require much attention span either. Nonetheless it throws some interesting ideas about vampires and werewolves into the discussion. The ending remains open to lure you to the following books in the series. I haven’t read any of these yet but I’m looking forward to doing so in the near future.
